How Does Twitter Expanding to 280 Characters Affect You?

Laura Tucker

6 months ago

Twitter’s 140-character limit has been discussed often throughout the years with some wondering if they should lift the limit. They’ve finally decided to do that, doubling the limit to 280. But is this really what people want? We asked our writers, “How does Twitter expanding to 280 characters affect you?”

Our Opinion

Phil answered the question exactly within the old 140-character limit. “I actually find the previous limit quite educational because it taught me to be brief. Getting a sentence to fit exactly is very satisfying.”

Miguel remarked that it does very little for him, as he barely uses Twitter, and when he does, he posts “short phrases here and there followed by a link.”

Ada doesn’t use social networks anymore as she doesn’t have time for it, but one reason in particular she gave up Twitter was “the crazy limit” as “brief isn’t my middle name, for sure.” She adds it must have bothered others because of the number of multi-part or ambiguous tweets there were. However, the new limit does make her reconsider using it again.

It doesn’t really have an effect on Alex’s life, but he does believe “it removes some of what made Twitter unique.” He’s not sure why Twitter made the change but thinks it will make them “less distinct” from other social networks, as he considers it a “fascinating little world that I like to drop in on from time to time.”

Simon says “it’ll be handy when reading other people’s longer, chained tweets, as there will be a lesser amount of total tweets to go through to get the whole message.” He doesn’t use it for anything longer than 140 characters, though, so he doesn’t believe he’ll notice much difference.

Ryan cracks “the only way it really affects me is that now I’ll have to endure more childish nonsense from the POTUS,” meaning Donald Trump.

Like some of the others, I don’t post really long things anyway, just my links with hashtags, but now I don’t have to decide which hashtags are more important. I can fit them all in. However, I have seen multi-part posts still, so the 280-character limit still isn’t long enough for some apparently.

Your Opinion

Are you a Twitter user? Do you post or just read others’ posts? How does Twitter expanding to 280 characters affect you? Join our conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments below. Can you do it in 280 characters?